Finds from the Grind - Descending with Company

Some scenes from my climb up to Mount Wilson on July 29th, including a nice descent with motorcycles.

The challenge with sharing a mountain road with passing motorcycles is letting them be confident that you'll hold your line on a curve. You'll notice that the majority of the motorbikes pass on the few straightaways, but some of the adventurous ones, who were leading the pack, trusted their skills and mine enough to pass on sweeping benders. It wasn't that easy for me, since the descent from Mount Wilson back down to Red Box is a chewed up road, has a bunch of gravel on it from the haphazard pothole repair and prevention on chipseal pavement, and there's been a bunch of rockfall all year after the heavy Winter rains.

The rest of the motorcycle crew passed me after the halfway mark on the big bender at the Mount Lowe trailhead which leads into a half-mile power climb. One of the dudes said I was doing 40 mph on that last straightaway, but I'm sure he was just looking at his odometer as he was gaining on me. I topped out at 34 mph according to my GPS file, so he was being generous.

Also, it's nice to share beer jersey moments with fellow cyclists.